


if only strangers

by fated_addiction



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, Code Name: Sailor V
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This isn't right</i>. Usagi, Mamoru, and the art of big reveals. | spoilers for Act 8 + Act 9, follows <b><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2563382">all the small details</a></b></p>
            </blockquote>





	if only strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Usual spoilers apply. Follows **[all the small details](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2563382)**.

This isn't right.

Mamoru is gone. Usagi doesn't look around to notice. It's odd; she feels it. Although there is a tightness around her heart, so much so that she reaches up and digs her fingers into the fabric of her blouse. She thinks it again: nothing about this is right.

Minako has long since powered-down. Rei follows first, then both Ami and Makoto. She comes around too and breathes with some relief, twisting her hand around to the back of her neck to rub the soreness away. Out of habit, she manages to sort of assess herself and her injuries. It's an easy distraction. She cannot bring herself to look at the other girls. Instead, she remains fascinated by Minako -- the _princess_ , she reminds herself -- and how otherworldly she remains, somewhat streamlined right under the moon. It unsettles her and she tries to force that back and away. The princess seems to look right through her and she doesn't know why that bothers her so much. 

There are bigger things to worry about, she tells herself. Her hands settle over her uniform then. Someone says something about a snack. Ami had cram school and is the easiest excuse. Usagi is tired though. Her energy will eventually return; she can count each moment on her fingers.

"We should walk," Rei says quietly, startling her.

She touches Usagi's elbow. Usagi smiles with her teeth. Her bottom lip pushes out but she swallows back that sigh. 

No one says anything else. Minako stays the furtherest away.

 

-

 

She dreams, of course.

Of course, she dreams. They become brighter. They become harder. She finds herself waking up and remember small things. The fabric of her dress. How that _man_ \-- the _prince_? -- and his hand felt against hers. She remembers smells and tastes and smiles, oddly enough, and the kindness that seemed to protect her for just a moment. She wonders who she was then and who she will come to be; she worries about the girls and their own memories. No one has told her a thing.

But she wakes up, after. Rei walked her home. It was out of her way. She kept her arm tucked into her own, as if sensing Usagi's inability to say anything about how she was feeling. It feels like they were all waiting for her to say something. Luna's voice is in her head. 

_you are the leader, after all_

The blankets are bunched around her ankles though. She kicks in her sleep now. Sweat licks away at her throat and she rubs her eyes, catching an open window and Luna nowhere to be found.

"I shouldn't," she says out loud.

But then her body starts to move; her hands pull herself into getting dressed. Then she's grabbing her shoes as she's out the window too.

The grass is wet and soft. She pauses. There's a light blurred in her parents' bedroom. She shifts and swallows. She's patient. The dewiness gathers at her toes as she slides clumsily into a pair of boots. She walks and it's late. The street lamps flicker. She pulls at her sweater. She reminds herself; communicator, temple, and twenty minutes away.

This is how she finds herself in front of his building.

 

 

 

"Don't _avoid_ me," she blurts, and he isn't surprised when he opens the door, leaning against it as she settles in front of him. "Please," she adds.

Mamoru stares at her.

This isn't a conversation for the hallway. She doesn't ask to come in. He doesn't offer. She knows the only reason why she got into the building was because the security guard remembered Mamoru bringing her in with some story about _my girlfriend_ and _sick_ (what was stranger was how quickly and easily it was for her to reply back) because bases are always supposed to be covered.

"Are you all right?" he asks finally.

Her mouth twists. "Everyone is asking me."

He studies her and steps forward, only to lean his back against the wall next to the frame of the door. She mirrors him and follows, taking the wall in front of him. She rests her hands behind her back.

"Well," he says. "Are you?"

She shrugs. "I don't know."

Her gaze falls to the door and what she can see. There is a third of couch and a small light. It crawls over a small coffee table and a few books. She squints and then rubs her eyes.

"I don't trust myself like you do," she murmurs.

He scoffs. "You know very little about me."

"I know _enough_."

"That's too naïve of you. You know better."

Usagi's eyes narrow. "And so do you."

He's edging himself away from her. She knows. The feeling is back. This isn't right. It's how she takes him in too: against the wall, the cuffs of his shirt rolled back over his elbows, the way his hair seems to cover his eyes. He doesn't seem real to her sometimes, as if he were better suited to be some sort of romantic notion that she cannot have. He makes sense for someone like Minako.

Her heart twists. Stop it, she tells herself.

"I don't want to fight." She swallows and rubs her eyes. "I wish I could I sleep, but I can't. And I don't even know where to begin with that. It's like everything unravels even more when I close my eyes. They're not nightmares. They feel like them. They feel like I'm missing something huge, something that is right here, right here and _waiting for me_ and now the princess is here and it's supposed to make sense but nothing, Mamo-chan --" and that slips with a croak, her teeth biting into her lip. You've gone that far. "But nothing is," she rambles. "Why isn't anything making any sense? She's _here_ and everything in me is saying no, no, _no_ this isn't right."

He's quiet and doesn't answer. She waits and stares at him. Her eyes are starting to burn and she wishes that she could cry or scream or at the very least, be that girlfriend and throw some sort of fit to make herself feel better. She wishes she could pretend. Or even indulge in being someone else for five minutes more. She won't give herself the distraction though. She thinks about the other girls and feels guilty. It makes her feel worse.

Her fingers comb through her hair. She presses them at her temple. Down the hall, a door opens and closes. Neither of them are saying anything now anyway. She waits a minute and then a minute more, pushing herself away from the wall. 

"Forget it," she says. "Maybe I was too selfish in thinking that at the very least, you'd understand."

She turns, stepping away. Her arms wrap around herself.

His hand curls around her shoulder. Her eyes widen. His fingers are suddenly heavier than she remembers.

"Stop," he says, and she listens. Her feet jerk to a stop. She doesn't know how to touch him back.

He doesn't say anything like _come here_ or _I know_. Not that she expects him too. He is a stranger and then not a stranger. The conflict inside of her is giving her too much to hold onto. But it stops being abrupt and he still comes to her like this: his hand moves away from her shoulder, and then down to her hip. She feels him press behind her and his arm replacing his hand as it wraps around her completely. 

He is too tall and too much. He is warm. It's almost too cruel how real he feels and her mind struggles to wrap around the simple things; how he smells, how close he is, and how much she needs this.

"I want to ask you to stay."

Her lips tremble.

"I can't," he murmurs. His mouth moves to ear. It's hot and slides down to brush over her jaw. She feels herself flush. "You know I can't."

"No," she protests. "I _don't_."

Mamoru chuckles. "Usagi --"

"I thought of you first," she says, and it's the most honest she's ever been with anyone. "You keep taking this from me," she says too. "I don't understand why I'm like this."

She turns slowly, but not all the way, her shoulder pushing into his chest. She doesn't look at him and his mouth hovers just over her skin. She thinks if she looks at him this way, completely, she might snap. She thinks he feels the same way. It's strange, almost superficial boundary. Maybe they are are surviving. Maybe this is it.

"Go home," he says. "I'll get you a cab."

She snorts and feels him grin into her cheek. Her heart flutters. She tries and swallows.

"I'm Sailor Moon, you know."

He laughs. The sound is almost surreal. His hand falls to her hip again. She bites her lip. His fingers graze her hair. She wishes he'd kiss her. They have to look at each other first.

"Please," he says to her. "At least let me do that."

Tonight she lets him.

 

-

 

Later she will find him in the park, covered in books. 

He'll try and look at her and confess: "I'm ashamed."

She'll laugh and look back and her eyes will be too wet. She doesn't remember what she says, but it's brave and almost bold and too like what she's supposed to say, who Usagi is supposed to be. She knows he will see right through her (he will later) and maybe, maybe this is the only thing she could give (it won't be), even though she's already given him everything else without even knowing.

It's Minako who gets the truth later. Usagi isn't looking at her either; it's her own confession.

"I was trying too hard," she says.


End file.
